Posted by littleone on December 18, 2006, at 19:37:25
In reply to Re: dissociation, how to stop? mega long » littleone, posted by toojane on December 18, 2006, at 7:40:13
> Wow Littleone, that was an amazing post. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it. That kind of detail and description of your process is SO helpful.
Hi toojane. Thanks for that. Your kind words really mean a lot to me.
> May I ask how long you have been in therapy
I’ve been with my current T for 2 years and 9 months. Plus I had some very bad therapy with other T’s prior to that.
> and what kind of therapy you are doing?
I hadn’t realised until you asked this, but apparently this is still a very loaded question for me. If you were to ask my T, he would say we’re doing CBT. He believes that just about every kind of therapy is CBT, ie they are all aimed at altering your thoughts, beliefs and behaviours. It’s just that the different theories use different underpinnings and ideas and techniques to make these alterations.
However, having said we’re doing CBT, it’s not anything like what I normally think of CBT as being. We don’t sit down and identify my thoughts and then substitute new thoughts in there. We don’t sit down and identify my behaviours then create stepping stones towards implementing new behaviours. That style of CBT just doesn’t work for me.
So even though he calls himself a CBT, he uses ideas and styles and techniques from all sorts of different orientations. He’ll pretty much use any method that he thinks will assist the change he’s working on, eg we’ve played cards before, he sits on the floor with me, he looks through photos with me, etc.
> How often do you go
Twice a week. I bump it up to three times a week just before and after his holidays and also whenever I’m having a really rough time. I will also put in an extra session now if I feel the nothingness coming on. Sometimes the extra session helps to stop the nothingness before it gets started.
> what kind of therapist do you have
A wonderful one :)
> did you do any other kinds of therapy before what you are doing currently that you did or didn’t find helpful?
Yes. I saw one who was a real blank slate type. It went very very badly and I ended up in a very bad place. That type doesn’t work for me because I have so much trouble talking and trusting. I also saw a very sleazy slimy one who didn’t really listen to the little I had to say and just changed what I said to fit into his picture of me.
> I’m not sure of the etiquette, but could I ask what your diagnosis is, if you have one?
Another very loaded question for me. This has actually just blown up in T for me. In a nutshell, my T won’t give me a diagnosis because each one holds too much meaning for me (eg being this one would make me a very special client, being this one would mean I am an awful bother and need to pull back more, being this one means I am just one of the multitude and makes me worthless). Plus to me, different diagnoses indicate different levels of abuse/neglect/trauma which makes it all even more loaded for me.
I say that I need a diagnosis to know where I belong. To fit in somewhere. He argues that I need to learn that I belong and fit in as I am. That I don’t need a label to do that for me.
I tend to toy with the idea that I’m DSM-NOS :)
poster:littleone
thread:714598
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20061210/msgs/714880.html